If, after the nineteenth century, there remained any question concerning the universality of international law, or of its fundamental rules, it appeared to be largely one of legal history. But as the world of the twentieth century has come to be divided by political ideologies, their legal ramifications have given the question new actuality as one of basic legal theory. That the Family of Nations, or the subjects of international law, embraced virtually all states of the world seemed no longer open to serious doubt when non-Christian states wholly outside Europe took part in the Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 and when participation by such states was continued and further extended in the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and in the League of Nations. Yet the same period that saw the unquestioned global expansion of international law has had to face new challenges to its unity as a single, universally valid legal system. They were raised chiefly by German Nazis and Soviet Communists, or in turn against them by their respective critics and opponents. Confronted with these challenges, the universal validity of international law appears no longer as an existingphenomenon that may be traced back to its origins and on to its eventual completion, but as a debatable assumption that stands to be justified or rejected in the light of fresh examination.

The war in the Pacific has focused attention on rubber as one of the key materials of peace and war economy. It has not only caused domestic adjustments in the United States as previously in other consuming countries, both allied and enemy, but has terminated an epoch in international rubber control. At the same time, it has accentuated the permanent international concern about basic materials—their location, accessibility, production, distribution, and utilization. Thus the international rubber régime, as it operated up to the disruption of trade-lanes and the invasion and devastation of producing areas, is of interest not only because of its effects in the period just ended but also as an approach to problems of international economic policy and administrative technique which are likely to continue into post-war world organization, no matter how different its political and strategical foundations may be.

Nineteen thirty-eight marked the completion of the first year of successful operation of the new international sugar régime and the beginning of its second year. This régime constitutes a new effort at international administration and planning of an important industry. It is now possible to make a first examination of the practical working of the International Sugar Agreement of May 6, 1937, on which the present régime is based, and to compare its operation with that of preceding systems.